Tag Archives: Copycat crimes

Click the image to watch the beginning of Natural Born Killers !

While most of Lombroso’s theories of why homicide has increased in America are manifestations of racism and pseudoscience, I was pleased with his recognition of criminal activity among people who were exposed to criminal activity by the media.  Lombroso suggests that some people will only commit copycat crimes. I think that he is correct; exposure to violence is encouragement of violence.  The movie Natural Born Killers has been credited with spurring many shootings throughout the country.  Because it made the criminals celebrities, and because it presented violence in such an alluring manner, it attracted easily influenced people to commit random acts of violence. Random is the keyword, since most of the crimes associated withe the movie were without motive, just like Mickey & Mallory’s crimes.  Lombroso would have used the the copycat crimes inspired by the movie as hard evidence of a critical cause of crime in the US. Yet it is ironic that while Lombroso is looking for the biological reason of why people commit crime, a trait that would have been found by him if he examined the main characters of the movie, it initiates replica murders by other people who wouldn’t have committed such crimes, and therefore don’t have the violent biological factor, without watching the film.  I wish Lombroso spent more time developing his theories about such criminals.  While the debate around the extent of influence violence in music and film have on reality is always hot, I think that without movies such as Natural Born Killers, contemporary society would have much less natural born criminals.

Zhanna Onishchuk